Appointment of Shaktikanta Das' is wrong, he worked in corrupt activities with Chidambaram: Swamy

The Bharatiya Janaya Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy on Wednesday questioned the appointment of Shaktikanta Das as the governor of RBI, and said that he has written about it to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Shaktikanta Das being appointed as RBI Governor is wrong, he has worked closely in corrupt activities with P Chidambaram and even tried to save him in court cases," he said.

the BJP leader also wondered as to why has he been appointed. "I have written a letter to PM against this decision," he said.

Former bureaucrat Shaktikanta Das was Tuesday named the new governor of the Reserve Bank of India after Urjit Patel abruptly resigned amid a face-off with the government over issues related to governance and autonomy of the central bank.

Das, 61, who was the first to field questions on the shock November 2016 decision to junk 86% of the currency in circulation, will have a three-year tenure.

Das, a 1980-batch IAS officer from the Tamil Nadu cadre, retired as Economic Affairs Secretary in May 2017 and was since appointed India's Sherpa to the G-20 and a member of the Finance Commission.

Having worked equally at ease under three different finance ministers -- P Chidambaram, Pranab Mukherjee and Arun Jaitley -- he is described as a person who prefers to take a non-confrontational approach to problem solving. 

Das, who was the economic affairs secretary from 2015 to 2017, worked closely with the central bank and oversaw the demonetisation exercise in late 2016.

(With agency inputs)